ACLU calling for B-R recruiting records

Friday

Dec 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMDec 26, 2008 at 5:34 PM

School Committee Chairman Gordon Luciano is up in arms over a request from the American Civil Liberties Union for copies of records relating to military recruiters and their access to Bridgewater-Raynham students dating back two years.

Susan Parkou Weinstein

School Committee Chairman Gordon Luciano is up in arms over a request from the American Civil Liberties Union for copies of records relating to military recruiters and their access to Bridgewater-Raynham students dating back two years.

“It’s unfortunate they chose this course of action,” Luciano said Wednesday of the ACLU and the Bridgewater-based Citizens for an Informed Community. “If this is an attempt to threaten, bully or intimidate the school committee into reversing its decision, it will fail.”

But ACLU attorney Sarah Wunsch said her organization is not acting of behalf of the CIC although members have approached her for advice.

CIC has been trying, without success, to provide high school students with information to counter what they view as overly aggressive recruiting techniques by the armed forces.

In November, the school committee voted not to allow the peace group to set up a table alongside the military at college and jobs fairs.

Wunsch said the ACLU is seeking documents under the Freedom of Information Act because it has concerns about districts not complying with the law requiring the equal access to other groups.

“I’m not rushing to judgment and I’m not accusing them of wrongdoing,” she said of her Dec. 16 request. “I want to see their guidelines about who gets to come in and why.”

The 2001 federal “No Child Left Behind” Act requires school administrators to give military recruiters contact information on high schools students, unless the parent or child signs a “do not release” opt-out form.

Federal law also requires military recruiters be given equal access to students in the school as is given to other kinds of recruiters.

There is nothing in the law that requires schools to open up particular areas to military recruiters, however.

And there is no requirement that military recruiters receive more access than other types of recruiters, Wunsch said.

Some schools may violate the First Amendment’s prohibition on government engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” if they allow in military recruiters but refuse similar access to counter-military groups.

“Why not provide information about a career in peace?” Wunsch asked.

Districts also often obscure the opt-out section in student handbooks or have spotty compliance with opt-out requests, according to critics.

After reviewing the matter over the summer and fall, the school committee in November voted to improve the visibility of the “opt-out” document in the student handbook but still not to allow the CIC to set up a table at career or college fair events.

Luciano said no member of his committee or the public has approached him to revisit the issue since the vote was taken.

All concerns about whether the district provides the military with greater access to students than colleges or employers have been addressed and dismissed, he said.

He said the ACLU request is wasting time and energy Superintendent Jacqueline Forbes should be spending on improving education in the district.

Saying the request is “much more than making a few copies of some information on a Sunday night,” he charged the ACLU with using B-R to push its agenda.

“I would like to know why B-R is being singled out. Is this an attempt by the ACLU to make B-R their cause celebre of the day?” he said.

Wunsch said that’s the price of being a government official in a free society.

She said the issue has been raised in other districts but the counter-recruiting groups and school committees have been able to work things out.

The ACLU has intervened in a case in the Lawrence schools.

“Public officials have to comply with public records law. They shouldn’t get bent out of shape,” she said.

In a Dec. 16 letter to Forbes, Luciano and B-R Principal Jeffrey Granatino, Wunsch has requested records of all books, papers, e-mails, recorded tapes, financial statements, made or received by any officer or employee of the district and any communication with U.S. military or Department of Defense, anti-war organizations policies, legal advisories and high school counseling relating to the military or careers in peace work; also any financial contributions by the Bridgewater-Raynham Schools to the U.S. military or payments made by U.S. military personnel to the Bridgewater-Raynham public schools.

She said she has granted an extension of the 10-day deadline for submitting the information as sought by the district’s lawyer, Joseph Emerson.